Textbooks

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The Cornell Store is continually working to find ways to help students manage their investment in academic materials. Efforts include:

• offering the flexibility, convenience and lower-costs of digital textbooks through a subscription based all-inclusive Cornell Academic Materials Program for undergraduates;
• offering digital textbooks and publisher software for participating graduate and professional courses directly in Canvas through the Instant Access Program;
• offering an online price comparison tool to compare textbook prices from campus sponsored digital programs with the global market and other online merchants;
• educating faculty on cost-conscious textbook adoption strategies;
• helping faculty produce and convert custom coursepacks that consolidate academic materials from multiple sources into one cost-effective digital product.

Within 24 hours of enrolling in classes, students have access to their personalized booklist, which includes the required and optional books for their registered courses as well as the available textbook formats. Instructions for viewing your personalized list or view textbooks by course without logging in.

Cornell Academic Materials Program

Launching with the fall 2022 semester, the Cornell Academic Materials Program (CAMP) is a university-wide digital-first program that provides undergraduate students at Cornell with access to their required textbooks and coursepacks for a single flat-rate cost. All required materials in this program are provided in a digital format within Canvas and become available for students to access no later than the first day of classes.  Some required textbooks that are not available in digital format will be distributed to participating students in print copy and are considered included in the program fee.

The Cornell Academic Materials Program sets the flat rate for course materials upfront giving undergraduate students a predictable cost that won’t fluctuate with the market. The program provides all undergraduate students access to their required textbooks and coursepacks for one low cost no matter what their course of study.  Undergraduate students are billed for the program during the July and January billing periods.  Undergraduate students that identify the program does not meet their academic requirements have the option to opt-out of participation. The Cornell Academic Materials Program does not currently provide for graduate and professional courses, but may be included in future phases. Learn more about the Cornell Academic Materials Program.

Instant Access

The Instant Access program delivers digital course materials directly to participating graduate and professional courses within students’ Canvas Learning Management System (LMS) profile on or before the first day of class at a significantly reduced price. The Instant Access Program will be the default way for you to receive your materials for the classes utilizing the Instant Access Program.  Instant Access courses offer trial access to the course materials and are conveniently bursar billed for active participants. Inactive participants have the option to opt-out.  Learn more about the Instant Access Program.

Textbook Buy-Back

At any point in a term, students may sell any unwanted print textbooks. The Cornell Store offers in-store buyback as well as virtual options for students to sell unwanted textbooks. Online vendors provide a quote, prepaid shipping label, and issue direct payment. For in-store buybacks, The Cornell Store offers cash payment. More information about textbook buy-back.

Alternative Content Delivery

Free Access from the Library

Textbooks and other required readings can often be borrowed from the Library without any cost to the student.

Search to see if the needed item is in the Library’s regular collection. Print books can be checked out for 8 weeks (undergraduates) or a year (graduate students.) The Library also has an extensive collection of e-books that can be accessed from anywhere. Materials can also be requested from partner libraries.

Faculty often arrange for their course materials (print and electronic) to be available in the Library as short term loans called course reserves. If the required item is not listed yet, students can submit requests for the Library to purchase an item to add to Course Reserves.

Alternatives Library - Semester Long Textbook Loans

Before ordering expensive textbooks, check the Durland Alternatives Library to see if they have them available for semester long loan.